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Democrats, I have to ask...

What do you think of your President's Stimulus Package he and your leaders brought forth? You know, the one he's asking the Senate to act on quickly because we haven't got the time to scrutenize a 900 billion to 1.5 trillion bill.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. Calvin Coolidge

What do you think of your President's Stimulus Package he and your leaders brought forth? You know, the one he's asking the Senate to act on quickly because we haven't got the time to scrutenize a 900 billion to 1.5 trillion bill.

Well, personally I think all the money should go only to states that voted Democrat and the bills should go to the others. After all, up until now tax dollars have flowed primarily from blue to red.

What do you think of your President's Stimulus Package he and your leaders brought forth? You know, the one he's asking the Senate to act on quickly because we haven't got the time to scrutenize a 900 billion to 1.5 trillion bill.

I'm assuming this is an honest, serious question rather than a rhetorical one.

Honest, serious response:

I like it about as much as I liked the boondoggle Bush/Paulson bailout bill that has has been completely ineffective and without oversight. (Not to mention all the other billions of dollars of non-bailout, unvoted-on treasury money that disappeared in the last six months of 2008 in the name of economic recovery.) That is to say, it makes me ill.

I will say, the potential boondoggle beneficiaries this time around (state pork and special interests) are slightly (ever-so-slightly) less unpalatable to me than the earlier boondoggle beneficiaries (failing financiers and their allies), and there might be a teeny tiny bit of genuine stimulus in there somewhere... maybe. But it's a horror nonetheless, especially considering that the stakes may be even higher now.

The Republicans are doing the right thing at the moment--but I don't recall all that many of them doing the right thing under the Bush administration (a few, but not many, and frankly of those I think a lot were doing it for show, and I believe I recall at least one that said as much--I'll have to figure out how to look it up). The democrats on the Hill are not what they say they are (surprise, surprise), but neither are the Republicans (surprise, surprise).

It reminds me of a story of a friend's recent Christmas dinner. One host--a vegetarian 364 other days of the year--ate a prodigious amount of ham. After having eaten the ham, she self-rightously denied everyone else the opportunity to take home what was left of the ham, as meat is a horrible thing and she would do everyone else's health a favor by not letting them have ham, and she summarily threw it away, still belching ham breath herself.

Yes, I'm comparing Republicans to a crazy lapsed vegetarian.

However, I'm not all that happy with the Democrats at the moment, either, as they stand around drooling over the leftover table. It's gross.

Neither side gets to claim the high ground. The whole thing is a [expletive here] mess all around. It was before--15 days doesn't make that much of a difference, apparently (again, no surprise).

Most of the democrat voters I know were the white-knuckle "change is the only option I can stomach" brand, and we're white-knuckling the first hundred days as much as any Republican, I think. Perhaps moreso.

I agree, it is a horror and the stakes are much higher now. I also agree we can blame both sides of the isle for many mistakes in the past. This is the here and now and it is economic suicide for us. Maybe this is what is meant by redistributing the wealth. We'll all be poor.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. Calvin Coolidge

That's fine, all of us in flyover country will just quadruple the price of food and let all those limousine liberals on the coasts can afford it, they certainly aren't paying their taxes.

And the big 3 oil producing states of Louisiana, Texas and Alaska, the three that voted Republican will only refine thier oil and pipe their natural gas to states that voted Republican. Afterall, the Dems hate oil companies.The Stimulus Bill is a fraud and can't be defended!

Last edited by Franco; 02-04-2009 at 11:04 PM.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. Calvin Coolidge

I agree, it is a horror and the stakes are much higher now. I also agree we can blame both sides of the isle for many mistakes in the past. This is the here and now and it is economic suicide for us. Maybe this is what is meant by redistributing the wealth. We'll all be poor.

If Obama had real chutzpah, he would veto it even if it got pushed through by the democrats as is, and tell the whole lot of them he wouldn't sign it until it met his expectations and had a modicum of support from the other side of the aisle.

I'm not expecting it to happen from him, as it would also be political suicide and ill-advised if he wanted to accomplish anything else in the next four years. Hopefully it will get hammered into some sort of sense through negotiation behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, if history is any indicator, it will just get balanced out by Republican pork and cost twice as much, and both sides will pat themselves on the back for their bi-partisanship and take some smiling photos and watch their mutual friends make money off of it--and then get jobs from their mutual friends when they get voted out sometime in the future.

Grrr.

Maybe if we're all poor gas prices will stay down and I'll still be able to take my humble hounds to a few events every now and then. Just looking on the bright side...

If Obama had real chutzpah, he would veto it even if it got pushed through by the democrats as is, and tell the whole lot of them he wouldn't sign it until it met his expectations and had a modicum of support from the other side of the aisle.

I'm not expecting it to happen from him, as it would also be political suicide and ill-advised if he wanted to accomplish anything else in the next four years.

I was thinking the same thing earlier. That would take some real guts and I don't think political suicide. It would send a clear message that he's not Pelosi's boy and that he is in charge. I just don't think he has it in him and the bad advice he is getting will hurt him. Noticed on Tv tonight, O was talking up the boondoggle bill and poor Gietner was standing next to him like a whipped school boy.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. Calvin Coolidge

We are in a real bad economic situation which is comparable to the period before the great depression, yes? From what I have read and heard, most economists and experts believe so.

Is a stimulus package needed? From what I have read and heard, most economists and experts agree that a stimulus package is needed to jump start the economy. If you don't think so, why not and what is your alternative?

The question then becomes what should be in a stimulus package? This stimulus package, at this point, has/had a bunch of stuff in it that does not belong. Assuming you believe that a stimulus package is needed what should be in there? It already has $300+ billion in tax cuts. What else is needed folks? I look at the list that KG posted and there sure appears to be a lot of infrastructure projects. Much of that seems generally good. What specifically on the list should be there or not and what should be there that isn't?